Kiss Me Once

by Thomas Gifford

  It would be ugly.

  Chapter Sixteen

  WAITING FOR THE CAR, HE called Cindy to tell her he was on his way out. She sounded happy and excited and relieved and told him she’d had a wonderful day. She’d poked through the bookcases and found Emma by Jane Austen. She’d been curled up by the fire reading all day. She’d put on some fresh logs for his arrival. “Are you all right, darling? You sound sort of funny—are you okay?”

  “Sure. I’m just fine. Everything’s just fine.”

  She didn’t believe him: He heard the doubt in her voice. But she whispered him a kiss and told him to hurry because she missed him with all her heart.

  He beat the rush hour out of Manhattan but the storm’s intensity was growing by the minute. The highway was slick. He knew he’d be fighting to keep the little convertible from slipping off the shoulder. The wind was howling at the fabric top, finding every seam, every fit that was less than perfect. The heater was fighting its usual losing battle. The Ford was a summer car and it wasn’t summer. He couldn’t even imagine summer. He turned the radio on. It was scratchy and dim. But it was a lifeline out of the storm. The army, navy, and marines had established a beachhead on an island called Eniwetok in the Marshalls. And the Germans were putting up a hell of a fight south of Rome at Anzio. But the Allies were holding fast. And General MacArthur had announced that an entire convoy of fifteen Japanese ships had been sunk en route from Truk to the Bismarck Archipelago. The air attack had lasted three days.

  Three days … Three days ago he’d been happy, in love with Cindy Squires. Trusting her …

  The snow held the countryside in a kind of wet death grip. Darkness came prematurely. According to the radio he was out in the middle of the worst storm of the winter. Pennsylvania and New Jersey and Ohio, all the way back to Chicago and the plains beyond, were closing down. Upstate Buffalo had already gotten two feet. Drifts were piling up at the sides of the road. He cruised slowly past a huge truck which had gone off the road. It lay on its side like a dying monster. The driver was standing by a couple of red flares waiting for help. Soon the truck would be just the biggest drift among many.

  In the slow, nerve-racking going, he could clear Cindy from his thoughts. Everything he thought and felt was so ambivalent it made his head hurt. She had touched him so deeply in all the inexplicable ways you had to wrestle with when somebody came on strong, wanting you, loving you. Being loved was almost irresistible, particularly when you’d been so long alone, particularly when your emotions had been savaged by the loss of someone you’d loved more than you’d dreamed you ever could. When your pain was great, when your defenses were up all around the perimeters of your emotions, and someone still managed to reach you … well, then you had to take her seriously. She’d earned that much.

  Cindy’s sleeping with Bryce Huntoon seemed trivial when weighed in the scale with Max’s madness and Huntoon’s hideous death … What difference did it all make? All over the world people were under more pressure than they’d been designed to withstand and they were sleeping with anyone who might give them comfort. So she’d lied to him … The world was full of lies. She’d been honest about the other things, desperately honest about herself, honest about her feeling for him …

  That all sounded great. He was a noble chap, a swell guy, he could forgive and forget because he was such a fine fella …

  But had she been honest with him? Maybe she’d just wanted to get away from Max and he’d been a convenient means. But that was ridiculous, he was anything but convenient, he hadn’t even been a panting, willing lover. She could just as easily, more easily, have left the club that night with some money, gotten on a train and run far and fast. But she had stayed within Max’s reach and she said it was because of him. But maybe it was because there was no train that could go where Max couldn’t follow …

  He felt like a man running in a maze of snow and ice and wind, not knowing how to interpret what his eyes could see, half blind. Was it a dead end? Or was it the way out, the way to salvation and purification? Who was going to survive? The Beauty or the Beast? Who deserved to survive? Did any of them?

  In the end he was moving through time and space in a capsule of wind and cold, as if he were the next to the last man on the next to the last day. The last man on the last day was looking more and more like Max Bauman. A hallucination pursuing him through the storm. But, of course, that was crazy … Max couldn’t find them. He couldn’t be everywhere, Boston and New York and somewhere lost in the storm. He couldn’t be.

  The roads were deserted. He couldn’t even see the edges of the highway. The headlamps couldn’t handle the solid, opaque snowfall anymore. The wind blew the glare back into his face, into his eyes like a searchlight. The wipers tried to keep their arcs of vision open but it was a lost battle. He managed not to miss the proper turnoff by crawling along at five miles an hour, then got fouled up in a snowbank and had to get out and put the chains under the rear wheels to get free.

  He took the best run he could at the narrow path leading to the house and for a moment he thought he might make it. Then, with a groan from the clutch and gearbox, the plucky little Ford sloughed sideways, slipped into the shallow embankment which was deep with snow, and came to rest with its rear end flush against the poplar trees. The Ford was done for, for the duration of the storm, until a tow truck could get to it.

  The wind rammed the door back on his ankle and bent it over the running board while he tried to get out. He wasn’t wearing overshoes because he didn’t own any. He stood with the snow heavy as cement, reaching halfway to his knees. He was half a mile from the house and the night was seething, whipping brutal lashings of ice and sleet. He couldn’t see the house. He had to make sure he didn’t stray off the path to the left, into the vast sloping meadow where he might easily wander aimlessly until he dropped. He had a sense of the poplars to the right. The wind beat at them, thrashing the bare branches. He had to keep that sound to his right, never lose it.

  It was a slow process. The wind sucked his breath away and the snow sandblasted his face. He pulled the woolen muffler up over his mouth and nose. The snow clung to his eyelashes, weighed them down, began to harden. He brushed at the snow and it broke, brittle, like frosting on a cheap cake. He kept lifting one leg up out of the stuff as best he could but the bad one wasn’t meant for anything like snow hiking. He pushed off on the stick, using it also to probe for the blacktop underfoot. Swinging the stiff leg against the weight of the snow was the hardest work he’d done since the Giants put an end to playing football. The sweat was pouring off him, soaking his clothing, while the world around him tried to freeze him to death. He’d have sold his granny for a beer.

  In time he became a barely ambulatory snowman, shapeless, frozen, white, unreal. He wanted to lie down and die but he kept struggling onward. He wasn’t really thinking anymore. He just kept on slogging. Each step was going to be his last but never was. And then the lights of the house blurred before him, grew clearer as he panted forward. His heart was doing a polka against his rib cage. Finally he made it. He was leaning like a snowdrift against the door, weakly hammering, until the door wasn’t there anymore and he was falling into the bottomless void, just like Dick Powell playing Marlowe in Murder, My Sweet.

  He came to on the kitchen floor. She’d shut the door and dragged him in and was gently toweling the frozen snow and slabs of ice from his forehead and eyes and nose. She pulled the scarf slowly, slowly away from the crusted face and unbuttoned the coat, dropping chunks of snow on the linoleum. She was whispering, telling him it was all right now, not to worry, and then she was digging the snow from his shoes so she could get the laces untied. It took a long time but he was finally propped against the cupboard under the sink. He liked watching her take care of him.

  She got him a drink of cold water and helped him to stand and took him in before the fire. He was still shivering, teeth chattering, and she was all over him with dry towels and then a few square yards of Indian blanket.
She was gentle, efficient, determined. All the feeling was coming back and it hurt like hell. She brought brandy and sat down, held him, kissed him, whispered that everything was fine, that she was there and she was going to make him feel better, all better, that she loved him …

  She lay in his arms and he told her he knew about her affair with Bryce Huntoon. He told her she didn’t have to lie anymore. She listened with her head cocked, the blond veil drifting across one eye. She looked as if maybe she hadn’t recovered from the fright of his impersonation of Scott and Amundsen reaching the pole. She leaned up on an elbow.

  “But I did tell you about Huntoon, Lew, my love. I didn’t lie. I told you I tried to seduce the poor guy.”

  “No, no, you can relax, it’s too late now to keep up the act. You told me he turned you down. God knows why I believed that. I know you had an affair with him.” He was staring into the fire, feeling the heat. The logs crackled and sparks flew up the chimney. The wind whistled in the eaves. The house creaked like an old ship riding out stormy seas.

  “Listen to me, Lew.” She took his hand, tugging at his attention. “I did not have an affair with him. I told you exactly what happened, all of it. Why would I lie? I told you I’d have done it. I didn’t lie to make myself look better—you’re not making any sense. What do you mean you know?”

  “I was in his flat. I know, Cindy. I saw the place.”

  She grabbed him, hard, and her voice was steely, full of anger he’d never heard before. “Look at me, you! Listen to me. I’m telling you that I’ve never been near his flat. I have no idea where it is. Do you hear me?”

  “Cindy, for God’s sake, I saw your things! Your lipstick, I know that color. Your perfume in the fancy bottle with the silver filigree. I know! So let’s drop it—”

  “No, damn it! I won’t drop it! I’m a lot of things that aren’t so pretty but I’m not a liar. I’ve never lied to you. And I won’t have you thinking I did. I repeat, I’ve never been to his apartment or a hotel room or anywhere else! Get it? I once had a perfume bottle like that, a long time ago, but I haven’t seen it in years—years! I have no idea where it is or what happened to it.”

  “I’ve seen that bottle before, Cindy, I know I’ve seen it before, you must have used it—”

  “I told you, I haven’t had it in years. What can I do to make you believe me, Lew? Why do you look at me like we’re strangers? Anybody can buy that lipstick, ditto the perfume, it’s French, it’s called Diabolique … you’ve got to believe me, you must. I’ve never slept with Bryce Huntoon and never been to his place and there’s no reason for me to lie about it … Tell me, why would I lie?”

  His head was swimming. His eyes burned and he felt like somebody had put a mickey in his Pepsi-Cola.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know anything, not anymore. I don’t know why you’d lie …”

  “Look, why don’t you just ask Huntoon? He’s honest as a rock, no lies in him—”

  “I can’t—”

  “Don’t be proud, Lew.” She smiled, dazzled him, enchanted him with her little-girl mouth, her solemnity. “Go ahead, ask him!”

  “He’s dead, Cindy. Huntoon’s dead.”

  She squinted up at him, as if he were a mirage. “What did you say? He’s what?” She shook her head. “I don’t understand—”

  “Max killed him. Last night.” There was no point in telling her about it. The details didn’t matter and there had to be an end to the confusion. Somehow they all had to know the same story at the same time for a change.

  “How? Why? Tell me.”

  “Because Max decided you had to be having an affair and Huntoon was the culprit. Max couldn’t deal with it so he struck out, vengeance, punishment, whatever you want to call it. You don’t want to know how he did it, believe me.”

  “But why would Max decide on him?” Her eyes were wide, silently pleading that it wasn’t true. “Why Huntoon?”

  “Because we told him—”

  “You?”

  “Terry said he could talk Max out of hurting him and since Max was positive you had a lover, he wanted a name. That’s why he hired us to tail you in the first place … and we gave him Huntoon. Terry said he thought you were probably sleeping with the guy, anyway—”

  “Terry! Damn him!”

  “He told me I was too gullible, believing you when you told me Huntoon had turned you down flat. So Terry took Bryce to lunch and I searched his place and found your things—”

  “Not my things, Lew. Please …” She wiped her eyes.

  “Your lipstick, your perfume—”

  “Oh, my God, I see now, I see it all … Terry, he salted the room! Oh, no …”

  “What do you know about that? Salting?”

  “It’s something he used to tell me about, long time ago, before he ever introduced me to Max …” She bit at the thumbnail, brow furrowed. “Back when he was a cop. He told me how sometimes the cops would salt a guy’s car or his office or his home, plant evidence, I mean, and then they’d discover the stuff during a search. He said they did it when they knew a guy was a crook but they couldn’t get the goods on him. It’s obvious—that’s what he did with Huntoon and he left it for you to find while he took Huntoon to lunch. You found the stuff, you drew your own conclusions—that way he knew you’d go along with telling Max it was Huntoon.”

  “But the perfume bottle. It was right there—”

  “Yes, of course. Terry’s had it all this time. Sort of a souvenir of … of the old days.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Oh, Lew! Terry and I had a thing for a while, so long ago. I’d just come over from England and I was just a lonely kid. I met him at a party and he was nice and funny and seemed so worldly. I fell for him, I needed someone … tell me you understand, Lew—”

  “So he’s had you, too. You’re full of surprises.” His stomach was groping downward, feeling for China. It was always the same when a woman told you something you didn’t want to hear. Maybe it was the way you looked at them in the first place, but there wasn’t anything you could do about that. Once you cared about them, they had you and you never knew when the pain would start. But it would, it was bound to, just as you were bound to die one day.

  “Lew, it was years ago. I was close to him—and why shouldn’t I have been? You know him better than anyone, you know what a charmer he is! You love him, Lew!”

  “Funny, the way Terry never told me, once he knew a little about you and me. Jesus … so first Terry had you, then he handed you over to Max, who could really take care of you, give you a job … and along came the football hero—and Terry never told me the story—”

  “But why would he? What difference would it make? You might have gotten angry with him and what would have been the point of that? Can’t you see what’s important? Max killed the wrong man … an innocent man! If you want to be angry with Terry, do it for the right reasons! Why can’t you get free of worrying about yourself and your precious little ego?”

  “Sure, sure, you’re right.” He tried to believe that: He knew she was right. “I’m the one Max should have killed.” He was trying to make sense of it. “Terry knew that, so he saved me by throwing Huntoon to the lions … and then he couldn’t protect him. Christ.” He was drowning in the moral complexity, the sea of betrayal. Of course, the essence of the morality lay with Max: Killing people was wrong.

  She slumped against him, worn out, the flames reflected in the sapphire eyes. “Terry did what he had to do. He’s a realist, always the realist. He looks at the situation and sees what he has to do … He’s like Harry Madrid. Maybe all cops are like that … They simplify. They don’t dwell on the consequences. It’s always simple for Terry in the end. One set of actions is always preferable to the others.” She sighed, rubbed her face against his shoulder.

  “I know where I’ve seen the perfume bottle,” Cassidy sighed. “In his bedroom, on the bureau among his cuff links and rings and collar pins.” He took a drink
of the brandy she’d brought them in a single snifter. It burned all the way down. “I can’t help thinking about it, Cindy. He used me. My God, how he used me to set up Huntoon! And he made me believe you’d lied to me, that you’d been with Huntoon—he had to know what that would do to me!”

  “He had to, Lew, or you wouldn’t have gone along with giving Huntoon to Max—”

  “So?”

  “So Max would have kept digging and finally he’d have found out about you and me and he’d come after you … us. He cares about me, too. He did it to save you, Lew. Us.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. I guess we’ll never know. But Terry and I could have handled Max.”

  “No, no, you and Terry and Patton’s army couldn’t handle Max—this is their game, my love, their rules. I think it was all decided a million years ago, some of us had to die and poor Bryce came first. Better him than you, it comes down to that.”

  Later, with the house groaning and buckling and the wind banging at the windows, he felt her fingertips on his cheek, tracing cheekbones, eyebrows.

  “Come on, kiss me, Lew. Make love to me, please.”

  He held her and kissed her hair and smelled the same perfume and she curled against him under the blankets and for a time he was sure she had the power to make everything okay. Max had been right in his demented way. She was the Daughter of Time, she was the light and the dark. Cassidy had the feeling she was eternal, that she would survive them all. She was way beyond the rest of them but he couldn’t explain it even to himself. So he concentrated on holding her, smelling her, stroking her.

  “Don’t you see,” she whispered, “it makes no difference who we’ve been with before … you loved Karin, I understand something of that. And you’ve had your share of women, I’ve had men. We’re only human. But now we’ve found each other. Lew, I think it’s real. I do, I truly do. It’s like an opera, blood and passion and jealousy and madness and revenge and true love.” She nibbled at his chest.